


sea fever

by TheDawnHarbinger



Category: The Terror (2018 TV series), The Terror - Dan Simmons
Genre: Character Study, Developing Relationship, M/M, Pre-Canon, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-22
Updated: 2018-04-22
Packaged: 2019-04-26 12:51:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14402508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDawnHarbinger/pseuds/TheDawnHarbinger
Summary: There’s a notion that a drowning man, floundering and fighting for his life in the icy water, rises to the surface three times before being dragged down for good. William Gibson – who joined the navy at the tender age of seventeen and has seen more than one sailor drown since – doesn’t truly believe it.





	sea fever

**Author's Note:**

> Well, I was going to write something Peglar/Bridgens-ish, but I wanted to finish rereading the novel first and a lot of the things Adam Nagaitis has said in interviews about Hickey's feelings (?) for Gibson just strike me as really interesting. So I wrote this nonsense instead.
> 
> Unbeta'ed and written with a very shaky grasp on historical details, so I'm sorry if any errors crop up!

 

 

>    
>  To the gull’s way and the whale’s way, where the wind’s like a whetted knife.
> 
> ― John Masefield, _Sea Fever: Selected Poems_

 

There’s a notion that a drowning man, floundering and fighting for his life in the icy water, rises to the surface three times before being dragged down for good. William Gibson – who joined the navy at the tender age of seventeen and has seen more than one sailor drown since – doesn’t truly believe it.

 

_one._

 

At first, William only thinks about Cornelius Hickey in the drowsy and restless hours of the night when he’s halfway out of a dream, and he always opens his eyes quickly to try and shake the thoughts away. Carefully, he turns on his side and stares fixedly at the opposite wall of his little cabin, which looms in the darkness like the pale expanse of an arctic wasteland, and forces himself not to think about anything at all.

( Like Hickey’s smile, earnest and confidential as if they’re the oldest of friends, or the way the lantern light sometimes falls across his face when he’s sitting in the seamen’s mess, or the little patches of pale skin that can sometimes be glimpsed when the collar of a shirt falls unbuttoned – William doesn’t think about _any_ of it. )

These are still the early days, of course, when everything is still uncertain musings and restless nights. He follows Hickey – _pursues_ Hickey, although that’s a bold and gallant word and _this_ courtship is all fumbling questions and half-formed hopes – because he doesn’t know what else to do and tries hard to piece together a proper picture of the man; Hickey is unsteady on his feet and not quite used to the sway of the ship beneath him, he rarely mentions a home or a family, he’s quick with his fingers and quicker with his tongue, he _wants_ things.

William wants things too, but one thing in particular.

( “ _Cornelius_ ,” he says, when the early days have passed and they’ve circled ‘round each other for long enough and managed to reach a tentative understanding. He’s trying it out for the first time and satisfying himself with the way it sounds on his tongue, and he’s rewarded with a smile and a brush of lips against his cheekbone. It’s just a name, but there’s an intimacy to saying it that he hasn’t stopped liking yet – the feeling of being favored, confided in, set apart from the rest. )

He wants it with all his heart.

 

_two._

 

“― _say_ it’s peaceful, but I don’t s’pose anyone who’s ever died of it has been able to settle the matter, do you? Once the fever sets in, I mean.”

It's far from comfortable up on deck, with the wind whipping through the sails above and bringing with it the chill of distant northern ice sheets, but there’s some satisfaction to be gotten from being out in the fresh sea air after too long stuck below.  William leans against the rail and stares down at his hands – long fingers poking out blueish and pale from the thick gloves – and, even without looking at him, is unbearably aware of Cornelius’ presence beside him; a dark blur only a few inches away, that he desperately wants to press up against but doesn’t dare to.

Their breath hangs in ghostly clouds in the air between them and William tucks his hands under his arms, trying to get some feeling back into them. They very rarely get more than a few moments to spend alone together and he’s regretting that he suggested coming up here at all, now. There’s something painful about talking like this, out in the open where anyone could overhear and tenderer words can only be whispered.

( Finding a darkened corner suitable for privacy would have been better, would have let him get rid of the itch building up under his skin. That’s all this is and it’s foolish to pretend that it’s anything more, foolish to _wish_ ― )

It’s hardly surprising that the conversation has turned to the subject of sickness.

“It’s not,” William says quietly, thinking of the men who he’s watched dying in the grip of malaria, choking and sweating as the disease ate them rotten from the inside. Sometimes he wishes that he were more like Cornelius, to be so bold and fear nothing at all. “It’s never peaceful, dying like that. I’ve seen it happen.”

“Have you, Billy?”

Cornelius’ tone is still as light and pleasant as ever, but William glances up at last and sees that he’s suddenly gone quite still; his head is tipped slightly to one side, as if carefully considering a problem. The thought occurs suddenly that he's never seen the man seem so truly interested in anything – in _anyone_.

The realization is both disconcerting and oddly pleasant and William can’t keep himself from shivering. Abruptly, he pushes away from the rail and gestures aimlessly towards the desk beneath their boots, meaning to explain that he has duties to perform down in the officers’ quarters. Fumbling his words a little. “I should go. Mr. Lane―”

“―can wait a moment, can’t he?” says Cornelius and catches his wrist, always defter and more nimble. That strange interest is gone and he’s smiling again, irreverent, as if the two of them are only sharing a particularly good joke. He cradles William’s hands in his and, too quickly to be stopped, brings them to his mouth and breathes warm air across them.

William watches him and doesn’t let himself breathe.

 

_three_.

 

The ship surges forward across the waves and the whole world surges with it. William has to brace his hands against the sloping beams of the wall to keep from falling and, cornered and pressed close against him, Cornelius looks perfectly unconcerned. They’ve not yet managed to find a perfect rhythm for this, but there might be time for that later, or―

( _not_ )

There’s still things they need to practice. It’s easy for William to forget, from time to time, the difference in their height; he rarely _feels_ taller in any particular way and he only remembers that he is when he has to lean down to press a kiss to the other’s lips. At first, it’s uncomfortable and the angle is awkward on his neck, but then Cornelius bites at his mouth, hungry and devouring, and he forgets.

( Sometimes William looks into those eyes and sees nothing at all. Just barren wastelands that stretch on forever – _o_ _n and on, world without end_ – and colourless waves washing across colourless shores. There’s no place for him in that grey landscape and, though he tries hard not to think about it, he can’t escape the worming _doubt._ )

“Billy—” Cornelius is saying, and they’re so close that William can _feel_ the name against his skin better than he can hear it. He’s saying other things too, whispers and promises and orders, but the blood is roaring so loudly in William’s ears that he can barely understand a word of it. The familiar accent is slipping, blurring into something a little stronger.

Almost time, now.

Slowly, he eases down until he’s kneeling on the hard planking of the deck and hears, very distantly, the faint _thud_ of the other man’s back hitting the wall – uncharacteristically graceless, now. He can feel the cold beginning to spread through his bones, but Cornelius’ hands are very gentle as they tangle in the curls of his hair and it’s the kind of cold that can be ignored.

He closes his eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> Come hit me up on [tumblr](yonderharbinger.tumblr.com)!


End file.
